Archive for category: LivingEd – Charlotte

Author: Thomas White | Editorial Department, Living Church of God

Have you read a good book lately? In our latest Assembly, Dr. Douglas Winnail challenged the Living Education students to read. Read non-fiction. Read fiction. Just read good books.

But here’s a thought.

Even though we’re a small group of people who basically believe in the same fundamental truths and principles, we all probably have a slightly different idea of what constitutes a good book when it comes to fiction.

Uncertain answers

There are a lot of questions and no certain answers. Is it sinful to watch fiction of any kind? What about reading fiction? What if there are space aliens in the book we’re reading? What if there’s magic in it? What if a character fornicates or is a homosexual? What if a character is divorced, or says a bad word, or goes bowling on the Sabbath? Is the book evil if anybody kills anyone in it? Is a story fundamentally against God’s beautiful design of the universe if it contains a talking animal?

I’ll admit that I don’t know the answers. I mean, I have my ideas, my opinions, and so do you—but we could both be wrong, right? When it comes to this subject, we’re all learning. We all want to think like God, but we all have a long way to go. So, we’re not always sure.

Relaxed, yet ON

A few things, however, we can be certain of, and two of them go hand in hand—we all need to relax our brains sometimes, and we can never allow ourselves to turn our brains off. Let me put it this way: We all genuinely enjoy the company and conversation of at least one person outside the Church, right? Someone who doesn’t believe as we do. Maybe your dad is such a person for you, or your mom, or your brother or sister. If you’re close to this person, your brain is relaxed when you’re talking casually to them. You’re not obsessively analyzing everything this person is saying as they’re saying it, you’re just listening and enjoying.

But when this person you appreciate and enjoy says something like, “You know, gay couples should really just be allowed to live their lives as they want to,” something goes off in your brain, doesn’t it? Nope, says your brain. Not right. Not good. I disagree. Your overall opinion of this person’s mind doesn’t change, because you know there’s a lot of genuine value there, but you mentally slap a “’ Fraid not!” label on that particular part of their discourse and you move right along.

If our brains don’t do that when we’re relaxed—if, instead, we respond, even internally, with something like, “Say, that’s true! Gay couples really should be entitled to their lifestyle choices!”—then our brains aren’t just relaxed, they’re off. And when a brain is off, it’s just useless.

Low-power versus sleep mode

Like anything else, you can’t constantly run a brain at full blast—not if you want it to last, anyway—so we shouldn’t be afraid to relax it for a little bit. But while our brains are in low-power mode, we still have to resist the temptation to turn them off and stay alert to whatever Satan’s trying to slip in. When it comes to godly and ungodly fiction, there’s a lot that’s unclear, and a lot we don’t know, but I think we can all agree that just like anything else, fiction should never be consumed thoughtlessly.

Don’t be afraid to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t have it all right, or to read something that doesn’t either—but while you’re reading a good book, keep your brain on.

Thomas White was one of the onsite Living Education students for the 2018-2019 semesters. He also has a Bachelor’s Degree in English. Thomas currently works as an Editorial Assistant for the Living Church of God. According to his wife, he eats pizza in entirely the wrong way.

Author: Thomas White | Editorial Department, Living Church of God

Mr. Gerald Weston’s recent assembly provided a fascinating “speed run” through the Old Testament, noting each book, its highlights, and the affect it has upon the overarching flow of the Bible’s storyline.

He recommended taking a “swiss cheese” approach to the Bible—accept that there are holes in your comprehension of it, but appreciate what you do know, the understanding you have been given, and use that to piece it together and grow in knowledge.

Not an Easy Read

That was encouraging to me, because it can be easy for us to feel like we’re hopelessly ignorant when it comes to the Bible. Growing up in the God’s Church, I’ve heard several people admit to being afraid to talk about the Bible with brethren, because of how “stupid” they think they’re going to sound.

I get it—I’ve felt that way, too. The Bible is a thick, complicated book, and that’s before you get into all the translation issues.

It contains seemingly countless names of people, places, and things, goes into a shocking amount of detail in some places, contains a puzzling lack of detail in others, and just when you think you’re following what’s going on, it whips out a genealogy and fast-forwards a few hundred years. The Bible is beautiful, terrifying, comforting, and confusing, and anyone who claims to have read it cover-to-cover without at least once going, “Wait, what?” is probably lying.

But how could it be anything else? God wrote a book.

Sometimes I have to let that statement sink in. The more you think about it, the more it kind of blows your mind: God, the Eternal Family who knows all that could ever possibly be known, who is intimately aware of truths no puny human brain can even begin to fathom, wrote a book explaining the deepest secrets of life, the universe, and everything—and you and I actually kind of understand it a little bit. I mean, we get the gist! Even though Isaiah and Jeremiah lose us sometimes, Paul’s run-on sentences occasionally leave us blinking perplexedly, and our brains go numb every so often from all the numbers in Numbers, we still recognize characters, principles, laws, examples, and poetry that God Himself wrote.

Grateful for the Chance to Know

That’s not a reason to brag—without God’s Holy Spirit to help, any of us might think Ezra was a name from a Star Wars episode. But if the Lord of the Universe wrote a book and has gifted us with even a cursory understanding of it, we shouldn’t feel afraid to discuss it because we’re ashamed of not knowing it better. We should feel excited to discuss it because we have the chance to know it better. And we should be incredibly grateful to our Creator for whatever knowledge we have of the most important thing ever written.

Truly knowing the mind of God is just about the entire purpose of human life, so we should probably expect it to take a lifetime. Don’t be discouraged by what you don’t know. Be encouraged by what you can know—already, you probably know more than you think.

Thomas White was one of the onsite Living Education students for the 2018-2019 semesters. He also has a Bachelor’s Degree in English. Thomas currently works as an Editorial Assistant for the Living Church of God. According to his wife, he eats pizza in entirely the wrong way.